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SDK-LadyHawke Kennels Home---Dog Nutrition...
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I have been interested in animals as long as I can remember. From feeding cattle and hogs on my grandfather's farm to raising and training my Laborador Retriever, Kelly. This interest continued through college where I received a BS in Environmental Science: Field Biology and Ecology from the University of Wisconsin and then a MS in Wildlife Biology from The University of Montana. Some of my favorite courses include:

    Comparative Animal Physiology
    Animal Behavior
    Mammalian Reproduction
    Animal Nutrition

Given such an educational background and my livelihood centered in research I decided to seriously investigate the nutrition and feeding of the Great Pyrenees. This study was a literature review and interpretation of basic statistics. From this, I have been able to draw some useful inferences and conclusions.

Initially I began investigating basic canine nutrition. However, I realized the Great Pyrenees has specific nutritional requirements due to their size and slow metabolism. The nutritional requirement is not a special one, but rather a specific one. In other words, one that is not generic but instead tailored to the breed.

The BARF (Biologically Accurate Raw Food) Diet:
The jury is still out on this one as far as I am concerned. Strong points behind this diet are:

    The diet attempts to be biologically accurate. Dogs are much more carnivorous than humans as evidenced by their dentition (specifically their sharp canine and shearing teeth) and shortened digestive system. Animals adapted to eating highly digestible foods like meat-based proteins have developed short and consequently fast digestive systems. Conversely, animals foraging on grasses or other plants with high cellulose content and low digestibility tend to have complex digestive systems like the 4-chambered stomach of cattle and other ruminants.
    Preservatives are eliminated or reduced in this diet. Proponents argue that some preservatives may be linked to cancer in dogs.
Like any other raw food that we feed to our families, BARF ingredients require careful handling and may require some cooking to kill food bacterias that could be dangerous to dogs. Thus, the BARF diet requires more food prep time.

As a wildlife biologist, I question how biologically accurate this diet really is. Certainly, it is more biologically accurate than commercial kibbles but is it accurate enough? and is it really better for our dogs? The idea seems that since dogs were domesticated from various species of wolves and their kin, that a diet comparable to a wolf's must be good.

However, domestication and breeding has changed the dog over time. To better understand this, let's compare morphological differences in gait. A wolf's gait is called perfect-stepping. The direction of travel is truly straight with rear pads stepping into the mark of the front pad during the trot. The closest our domestic breeds come to this is a good single-track. While gait does not directly influence the digestion or diet of the domestic dog it is certainly indicative of differences and presented here to point out a fairly substantial skeletal difference between the species (Canis lupus and Canis familiaris).

The diet of the wolf is largely the tissue of freshly killed game. Principally, the source of meat is deer, elk, and other large ungulates. Meat used in the BARF diet is not freshly killed and not from wild game but rather farm-raised meats, similar to those used to process commercial kibbles. Further, rice and carrots are not a part of the wolf's diet but routinely appear in BARF diet recipes. From this perspective, the BARF diet is not biologically accurate. In contrast to the commercially processed kibble it is more biologically accurate, but let's not kid ourselves. Our dogs are not wolves. Further, no matter how much some people would like their dogs to be vegetarians who subsist on rice, grains, and fresh vegetables, the dog will remain a carnivore.

On the other hand, do we really want our dogs to live similar to wolves? How healthy is the wolf? What is their longevity and quality of life? I can nearly guarantee the wolf is not as healthy or long-lived as the domestic dog. And that is strictly because the domestic dog is "human subsidized". In other words, we take care of them.

A troubling arguement I have heard supporting the BARF diet deals more with politics than dietetics. The gist of it is large animal- feed corporations have paid off the US government and the veterinary profession so they will say or publish nothing against commercial dog food. I am not going to address this other than to say that the arguement evades the issue. It is very easy to become mired down in emotionally charged banter that de-rails and dilutes rather than works toward advancing our knowledge of the issue.

Not all raw food diets are BARF however. In fact, at least one commercial dog food company, Natural Balance, has begun offering a raw foods commercial diet in 2004.

Commercial Dog Diet:
I have personnally fed commercial kibble diet to our dogs for many years. Our Laborador Retriever died at age 13 and lived his entire life on basic commercial kibble. However, he did have some complications due to his diet. Like many, I had read and been told that active hunting dogs should be on a high-protein diet. Therefore, I fed him 28% hi-pro dog food. At about seven years of age, Kelly became deathly ill. Our vet told us that it was an acute liver failure due to a prolonged high-protein diet. We changed his diet to a low-protein (21%) dog food and he was absolutely fine from that day forth.

After this episode I sought information to better understand what happened. What I have learned is while protein is very easy to digest, non-animal based protein sources can stress other organs such as the liver. In "Nutritional Requirements of Dogs" (1985) meat-based proteins and soy-based proteins had essentially the same apparent digestibility (fig. 1). What is not discussed in this book is how by-products of non-meat based proteins are further handled by the dog. Apparently, these by-products are processed by the liver as toxins. Thus, prolonged feeding of any low-grade protein source is unhealthy for the dog.

Apparent Digestibility of Various Protein Sources
Armed with this information and recalling the slow metabolism, slow rate of growth, and giant size of the Great Pyrenees I set out to find the optimum diet for our dog. Further, I recall a conversation I had with our breeder regarding diet and her advise was fairly simple; Avoid high-protein foods and listen to your heart.

I made my decision by first identifying several factors that I felt were important. The factors I looked at were cost, feed rate (which effectively translates into a "stool factor" and is also part of the cost factor's "equation"), protein level (I am seeking a 24% protein level), protein source, and quality of ingredients. The latter factor addressed grain-based ingredients and the Omega-3 : Omega-6 fatty acid balance of the food. After ranking these factors (10 being best and 1 being worst), I weighted them as shown in figure 2. My findings have been distilled into a tabular report (note: to view this document you will need Adobe Acrobat reader).

Proper supplementation is a fine line. Take yogurt for instance. Many people supplement with yogurt --we do this for puppies-- as it provides extra calcium and the natural cultures aid in digestion. However, when we supplement with any food product we are not just supplementing our intended ingredient (calcium) but with everything in the food product. In the case of yogurt, we must be aware that we are also supplement fat. Nutritional studies have demonstrated that over-supplementing fat actually reduces overall food intake (fat is the primary factor signalling satiation in the dog). Thus the dog could feel "full" without consuming a sufficient level of protein or other vitamins and minerals.

Calcium deserves special attention especially where giant breed dogs are concerned. Recent studies with a number of Great Dane puppies/dogs showed a strong relationship between daily calcium dose and the incidence of skeletal malformations and panosteitis. Calcium dose is not the percent calcium nor the calcium:phosphorous ratio. Rather, it is the actual milligrams of calcium delivered to the growing dog in the diet. While some adult dog foods have a lower percent calcium it is often suggested that large breed puppies should be switched to adult food around six months of age to ensure proper skeletal development. What is not considered is that some adult foods have to be fed at higher rates (more cups) per day compared to the energy rich puppy chows. The result is the puppy actually receives more calcium compared to a quality large breed puppy formula like Eukanuba's.